PUNCH Editorial On Patience Jonathan’s “Offensive Illegality” Rattles Presidency

By Nicholas Ibekwe
The Presidency has reacted to an editorial by the Punch newspapers
which criticizes the First Lady, Patience Jonathan's penchant for
obstructing traffic and inconveniencing people with her elaborate
security arrangements during visits to Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt.
An obviously rattled presidency scrambled to the First Lady's defence,
describing the July 1 publication as "outright falsification" and
"calculated exaggerations".
The presidency reaction however did not address the fundamental issues
raised by the editorial.
The editorial titled "Patience Jonathan's excesses must be curbed"
condemns Mrs Jonathan's extravagantsecurity arrangements when visiting
other states.
The newspaper says during the First lady's recent visit to Port
Harcourt, her security arrangement completely paralysed activities in
the Government Reservation Area (GRA) of the city for the four days
she was in town.
"Armoured personnel carriers were deployed at two points, while
gun-wielding operatives manned the points leading to her private
residence. Many people missed their appointments because they were
prevented from moving in and out of their houses."
The editorial also noted that the Port Harcourt incident was not the
first time Mrs Jonathan would use her larger-than-life security
details to make inhabitants of towns she visited suffer
unnecessarily.
"When she came to Lagos last year, ona "thank-you visit" to some women
groups for electing her husband president, she enacted a similar
repulsive scenario. During the visit, Lagos residents were subjected
to an unprecedented road blockade, which gave rise to an unnerving
five-hour traffic that grounded all human and economic activities."
According to the editorial, the blockade on this particular occasion
was so bad that it prompted an angry reaction from the governor of
Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola.
"It is particularly worrisome that this (she) is not an elected
person. I think we all must check how security agencies use the
movement of high officers, especially VIPs, to disrupt citizens and
taxpayers, whose money is used to fuel all the vehicles and all the
apparatus that we use to block the roads against them," the newspaper
quotes the governor as saying.
The Punch also observes that during Mrs Jonathan's visit to Warri,
inhabitant of the state was made to endure similar inconvenience.
The newspapers then called on President Goodluck Jonathan to call his
wife to order.
"It is President Jonathan's duty to caution his wife to stop this
regime ofoffensive illegality that has tainted the Presidency and
presented Nigeriain a bad light," the paper wrote.
But in a rather belligerent reaction that completely failed to address
any of the issues raised in the editorial, Ayo Osinlu, media aide to
the First Lady accused the newspaper of being recruited into a "hit
squad" comprising people he described as having "tottering political
careers."
"These syndicated attacks are not exactly surprising, especially for
those who are familiar with the fact that it is a well-known trait of
the arrowhead of the attacks to be disrespectful of all forms of
authority, including those who gave him his most substantial
opportunities in life," he says.
"It is however worrisome that these trench men are finding partnership
in a sensitive organ of society such as the media, to cast aspersions
on carefully selected members of the society, as a design to inspire
public sympathy to accumulate for them. And tell us a better catch in
this calculation than the illustrious First Lady of the nation,
affectionately well-received by the people for her evident
accomplishments in charity, philanthropy and the general promotion of
the values of humanity."
"This is why we are persuaded to once again alert the media about the
lucre-for-news strategy of these desperados, whose ultimate plan is
totie the hands of the media behind its back, in order to induce it to
echo their faulty sentiments, Mr Osinlu adds.